Describes a study in which students taught by a creative method liked poetry more and understood it better than those taught by a directed method. (DD)

Provides suggestions for using transactional theory, which stresses the importance of interacting with text, in teaching literature at the secondary level. Lists seven principles for teaching that are inherent in transactional theory. (SKC)

Assesses the religious content of 34 young adult novels. Reports that nearly half of the titles evidenced no religious content, 13 provided a moderate and unobtrusive religious element, and 5 presented religion as an important element. (MM)

By classifying questions asked into categories of form, content, and affect, this analysis interprets Alan Purves' 1979 reanalysis of student responses to literature in a 1973 study. Notes that students emphasized form when viewing literature in the abstract, but that they looked at individual stories in terms of content and affect. (MKM)

The articles in this journal issue focus on adolescent literature. In the first article, author John Neufeld discusses how he chooses a particular topic and writes to uncover his own particular bias. The second article discusses the theme of "a price must be paid" in the works of Ouida Sebestyen while the third article presents an…

Describes the results of a study that asked two classes of 14 and 15 year olds to think aloud in the presence of an interviewer through their several readings of a poem. (DF)

Explores the participation in reading-writing workshops of students who consider reading to be an important part of their lives. Finds students who are engaged readers of fiction bring a set of expectations that differ from their teachers' and from students who do not read regularly for pleasure. (NH)

Reading comprehension involves making connections between prior knowledge and the visual information on the page. To reduce uncertainty, the reader makes orthographic, syntactic, or semantic predictions. Thus, comprehension is relative, dependent on the answers to different readers' different kinds of questions. The reader does not record a…

This essay explores the concept of reader stance as defined by L. Rosenblatt (1978, 1994) as a useful framework from which to view the relative imbalance between the efferent and aesthetic reading of literature, particularly among schoolage adolescents. It then examines how 4 theoretical models and perspectives offer considerable explanatory…

Presents results of a study of how readers fill in information "gaps" in a text to make meaning, using adolescents' response to a story by Brecht. Concludes that such gaps bore children uninterested in making meaning, and that those who make meaning from a mechanical stance may be limited in their comprehension unless deeper ways of…

Details a study in which high school students were introduced to a categorization strategy for vocabulary terms related to literary analysis. Concludes that the strategy was a worthwhile addition to the traditional Socratic approach to literary analysis. (FL)

Describes a study of seventh graders learning to make and share meaning about literature through "sketch-to-stretch," an interpretive strategy involving the creation of symbols and pictures and other nonlinguistic signs to signify ideas generated through reading. Supports teaching that provides such shared opportunities for students. (TB)

Prepared as part of the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project conducted to uncover universal, cross-cultural features in readers' response to literature, this paper reports on a pilot study to determine which three out of nine preselected fairy tales would elicit the most faceted, legitimate response from a population of Danish readers. After explaining…

Prepared as part of the Turko-Danish Fairytale Project conducted to uncover universal, cross-cultural features in readers' response to literature, this paper reports on a pilot study to determine which three out of nine preselected fairy tales would elicit the most faceted response from a population of Turkish readers. After explaining the…

In an investigation of the characteristics of "considerate" text, defined as informative, content area text that promotes student comprehension, learning and remembering, this report presents a prototypical chapter of considerate text on American history following the Revolutionary War and a commentary on the writing. Beginning with the…